With the panchayat elections being not too far away, Governments have been busy shifting the focus to the agro-rural sector. There is more emphasis on the problem of farmers. Alongside, the agro-rural infrastructure is also receiving greater attention. But when it comes to the bras stack, there is hardly any attempt at causing basic structural changes. Odisha has seen suicides in the farming community. This figure is somewhere around 210. Most of these cases are linked with drought leading to crop loss. This in turn further leads to loss of income, adding to the inabilities to service the snowballing debts. The Swaminathan Commission on agriculture had made detailed recommendations. They are yet to receive any appropriate attention. Though the costs of inputs have gone up, the minimum support prices for rice, etc., have not been adequately revised.
Any move towards altering the feudal structure would, under the circumstances, be surreptitiously opposed. The prices of basic food items have escalated in the last year, and Odisha has the unenviable distinction of being the third costliest State in the country. The outflow of money from out of the State is much higher than any inflow in the context of trade and commerce in agricultural and industrial products. But this increased price does not ensue to the benefit of the grassroots farmers. It is the middlemen and the traders to reap the cream. This is where the rural infrastructure should play a very significant role. Quality inputs, integrated irrigation, warehousing, cold storage and capacity to avoid distress sale are the minimum that has to be satisfied for at least keeping the people in the agro-rural sector above subsistence level.
But the scenario in Odisha is otherwise. There are districts from where labourers migrate in large numbers up to Jammu & Kashmir, Mumbai and Chennai. Most of them suffer exploitation in the hands of the employers or the labour contractors. They do not receive their legitimate entitlements. Social security measures in this sector have been the poorest. Marginal help is emanating from some schemes of crop insurance. But the rigmarole of procedure and the cussedness of the decision-making process go on delaying any move towards a change in the status of the farmers. Formulation of a suitable policy is delayed by design. Even when the legislature passes an Act, it may often remain in the statute book without being enforced or implemented so as to achieve its social object. There still remain plenty of loose ends between policy formulation, policy legislation (including subordinate legislation) and effective implementation thereof. Every Act of legislature requires a certain device of human resources and supportive infrastructure to translate the underlying policy into reality at the ground level. All these are not adjuncts, but are fundamental to the effectuation of the legislative intent. This part gets neglected, though the persons in authority are aware of this mismatch frustrating the social object for which such Acts have been enacted for the betterment of the people. The planning process is not yet altered so as to build a network of projects from a micro to a macro level. We hear of extending highways, opening up waterways, springing up of industries, but the level of poverty does not decline in an appreciable manner. The laws are too many to comply with and the litigation becomes a survival necessity. litigation, in turn, has its own pace of movement and can effectively defeat the object of an Act.
As the Union Parliament and the State legislatures pass more and more enactments to enforce the agreed-upon policies, the judiciary has to take its share of the burden. Both the President and the Chief Justice of India have expressed their anxieties recently at Allahabad. Some innovative methods have to be adopted so as to take care of the backlog of arrears and to minimise the periods spent in bringing litigations to their logical end. Judiciary is no more concerned with conflicts of private rights and in minimising the incidence of crimes. It is an agency of the State in a larger sense to enforce the law by suitable remedial directions to minimise inaction. Wherever necessary, there may be the need to further go on to ensure that the social objective of the Act is purposively achieved. This burden on the shoulders of the judiciary is gradually increasing. It has reached a stage of participative justice. The judiciary is compelled to be active and not to be inactive.
The forthcoming legislative sessions, both at the Centre and in the State, are going to bring to the fore very significant measures having far-reaching socioeconomic impact. Political wisdom on such occasions must overtake narrow political considerations. To cite a very small example, the Odisha Government noticed the uneven movements and erratic fluctuations in the price of commodities in the State. It was felt necessary to have a high-level inflation monitoring group directly under the Chief Minister. The proposal to have a Cabinet committee on price rise has been languishing from as early as 2010. The monitoring system is grossly inadequate and requires a serious push in the right direction.
Despite several Missions in the health sector, diseases like leprosy, malaria, smallpox, etc., have reappeared at a time when we thought they stood eradicated. Degradation of the environment is an additional factor to be concerned about. Educational facilities at the grassroots level are limping along. We have primary education guaranteed as one of our Fundamental Rights. But the lack of facilities, lack of able teachers and the increasing dropout rate indicate chronic sickness in this sphere. The basic social sector continues to be neglected with high-rise buildings multiplying day by day with concurrent growth of slums. But the propaganda machinery is trying hard to make us believe that there is welfare, growth and development galore. The expenses on publicity are ever-increasing, attempting hard to peddle dreams of prosperity. We have quite a good number of professional dream merchants and they are busier than ever before.
The youth power need not be over-tolerant of the window-dressing of policy framing and legislating and finally not achieving the social objects. They have to raise their voice and become motivated monitors to ensure that the Government becomes more active on the legislative and executive fronts. It has to turn to be effective and goal-oriented. While the younger generation has to act, the older generation has to advise and aid. It cannot, therefore, be a sectarian cause. It involves all of us. And, this concerns us all!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former9diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. jayantdas@hotmail.com)